“Downton Abbey’s” Robert Crawley, the Earl of Grantham, is not a self-aware man — perhaps to be expected of someone whose social class literally believed they were too good to dress themselves. He thought he knew better than anyone as a rich guy from a tradition of rich guys. You kinda want to shake him.

Alternatively, Hugh Bonneville, the actor who plays Crawley, is firmly aware of what’s going on in the world. In a recent red carpet ITV interview for the film premiere of “Downtown Abbey: The Grand Finale,” he addressed the conundrum of enjoying a beloved franchise about the unspeakably wealthy while the real-life wealthy are starving people to death.

Bonneville asked for a moment before expounding on the film’s “fluff and loveliness” to comment quickly on the bleak situation in Gaza, saying that “the international community must do more to bring it to an end.” The reporter looked shook, and the anchor back in the studio glumly dismissed the actor’s comment with, “Of course it’s not about the politics, it’s all about the film.”

It’s tricky, isn’t it, navigating the fluff through the current lens of pain? As humans, we need fluff. We simply can’t survive without a break from political violence, deportations and the swift disenfranchisement of Black women.

I love “Downton Abbey,” in part, because the six-season PBS series is an escapist tale in which downsizing castles or the kitchen maid being spotted by guests upstairs are big plot points.

I wondered if revisiting the show, which debuted stateside in 2011, and the final movie, released in theaters Friday, would be upsetting in the searing and harsh light of reality. I was surprised to find that it was just what I needed.

I was reminded that despite what the glum ITV anchor thinks, “Downton Abbey,” in its own way, has always been at its core about politics, shifting social mores and the way those in power stubbornly resist change that doesn’t benefit them and their bubble.

When we meet the Crawley family in the first episode, the Titanic has just capsized, taking with it the male relative who was set to inherit their estate. He was supposed to marry gorgeous, haughty oldest daughter Mary (Michelle Dockery), who would have been the heir if she were a man. Now she has to marry Matthew (Dan Stevens), another distant cousin, or her family will lose everything, including the fortune of her American mother Cora (Elizabeth McGovern).

Instantly, we have to confront this unfamiliar society where dumb men constantly create situations to disenfranchise women while they are simultaneously scandalized by someone wearing the wrong jacket to dinner. All around them, the world is changing with war, Irish politics, electricity or the concept of a weekend, a revolutionary idea to people who don’t have jobs.

The first time I watched “Downton,” I was frustrated with the almost childlike stubbornness of people who spent more money on dinner every night than it probably cost to feed the rest of the village every year. But in a weird way, it made more sense to me during my recent rewatch: In the light of the current broken state of the world, I can see why they are the way they are.

For instance, I never liked Mary because she was a mean snob who just assumed everyone was in love with her (they often were). But now, I understand that part of her attitude is the frustration that she’s smarter than most people in the room but is reduced to what kind of deals her beauty can make for the rest of the family. She’d likely be galled to be called a feminist, but she is.

At the same time, I also appreciated youngest and beloved sister Sybil (Jessica Brown Findlay) more. The first time around she seemed to me an idealist cosplayer, the spiritual godmother of modern college students whose politics were petitions and message tees they abandoned when they outgrew them. But now, I see Sybil’s activism isn’t a costume. She’s fundamentally out of step with the role she was born into, and when she runs off to Ireland with Tom (Allen Leech), the hot Irish revolutionary chauffeur, she’s not just acting out. She’s standing up.

The show was never quite as fluffy as it seemed, something I remembered through the rewatch as well as the latest movie’s gut punch of a final act. Sybil’s and Matthew‘s respective fates (SPOILER!) were a reminder that even young pretty people can be widowed, something I didn’t personally appreciate when the show first aired but sure do now. (I was not as young or pretty, but you get what I’m saying.)

“Downton” also did a good job of explaining the stifling sexual politics of the day, which we should remember as some people in this world want us to go back there. Lady’s maid Anna (Joanne Froggatt) is brutally raped by a visiting aristocrat’s valet, and is convinced that she must have done something to deserve it. There are rules against visiting a home where the current kitchen maid was once a prostitute to support herself and her child, even though the woman did that because the kid’s rich father abandoned them.

The show even touched on cultural and racial bias, including the scandal surrounding Sybil’s marriage to Tom, an Irish Catholic, and the resistance to raising their child in his faith. Then there was the brief relationship between niece Rose (Lily James) and Black American band leader Jack Ross (Gary Carr), who legitimately seems to have been the first Black person a lot of the Downton folks ever saw in person.

“Downton Abbey” is not reality, at least not mine. The main characters worry about losing their grand home, but never risk being homeless. They are creatures of a different time. But there is love, respect and honor — something we’ve lost.

I live solidly in this world we’re trying to save, but I’ll take it with a spoonful of lovely, if it’s all the same to you.